


Colony Lost

by TopHatJam



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:15:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26258530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TopHatJam/pseuds/TopHatJam
Summary: Following the failed Manswell expedition at the dawn of Human space exploration, a second attempt using theoretical FTL technology is launched, and is likewise lost. The crew, finding themselves far from home, build another civilization in their new solar system. Centuries later, they prepare to launch an expedition of their own. What will they find in the galaxy they left behind?Updates will be irregular. Constructive criticism encouraged. Forgive me for formatting issues.
Kudos: 1





	1. Prometheus

Home.   
  
A pale blue dot against a sable backdrop terrifying in its depth and intensity, punctuated by impossibly distant white pinpricks that twinkle and die on timescales beyond human understanding.    
  
Humanity’s cradle, once our only safe harbour in the cold, unforgiving seas of space - Now, a hazy legend mired in mystery. Like Avalon, a perfect utopia forever beyond the reach of the mortals destined to look from afar with greed and avarice. The gulf of blackness between the shoals of stars that make up the galaxies separate us from mankind’s ancestral home. We, the lost colonies of Earth, could only watch that pale blue dot sail through the stars in the grand celestial dance conducted by gravity.   
  
It had been well over a hundred years since the expedition that carried our ancestors far from home, although time had a funny way of bending over such large distances. 2070, by the old calendars, was the year when the groundwork was first laid. A businessman, frustrated at the lack of effort put into human expansion into the stars, used his substantial wealth to fund an expedition out into that unforgiving blackness. They gathered 300 brave souls. The best and the brightest that humanity had to offer. None would ever return.   
  
At the time this was quite the scandal, but it wouldn’t hamper humanity’s progress into the stars. We had a taste of the wealth, and we wouldn’t shy away from it over a few hundred corpses floating somewhere in the void. In secret, that businessman and a number of other interested parties continued their efforts. They would make a ship, grander than the one before, using science barely understood to propel the craft at faster than light speeds. If it worked, it would be a testament to humanity’s ingenuity and mastery of the universe.    
  
Scientists from all over the world were gathered to oversee the construction of the ship that would carry humanity to alien stars. No expense was spared. Not only was it large, it was equipped with the most advanced technology of the day, and facilities to allow for the ship to establish permanent human presence on a planet should the worst come to pass, and the ship found itself unable to return. Frozen embryos, databanks containing works of cultural importance, technical documents, and star charts that would hopefully guide the descendants of the crew home. It was to be the  _ Prometheus _ . The champion of humanity.    
  
By 2100, it was ready. The engine, inspired by the proposals of Alcubierre, would warp space to allow the ship to travel faster than the speed of light, and would carry the crew to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth (after Sol, of course). Theoretically, the drive would work exactly as intended, though the sheer bulk and cost of the drive prevented any small scale tests. To maintain a bubble of “real” space amidst the warped reality around it required power that a smaller vessel could not provide. The crew were confident, but would announce nothing until they had completed their trip, and could personally vouch that it would work. They hadn’t spent significant effort disgusting the ship’s true purpose only to stumble at the last hurdle and let the cat out of the bag. After the last disastrous expedition, any governmental scrutiny would delay the project years. That could not be allowed. Better to ask forgiveness than beg permission. 

So the  _ Prometheus _ undertook its maiden voyage, and history repeated itself.   
  
The vessel had vanished. Hundreds of meters of steel and ceramic, thousands of men, and trillions of dollars had just vanished in an instant. The incident was remembered as one of the largest industrial accidents in history. A giant, newly built mining ship was unfortunately struck by an asteroid, and fell into Jupiter. Any government investigation was frustrated through the liberal application of bribery, and no-one even noticed that the ship wasn’t even anywhere near Jupiter when it vanished.   
  
In the minds of those that knew of it’s true purpose, it was a sign that for all of humanity’s combined efforts, some laws of the universe couldn’t be breached. All the techs knew was that the ship had been folded away into a pocket of space, and had likely been crushed by the forces, or had sublimated into pure energy. Some held hope that it would return, but after years without any sign of the craft, that hope was abandoned, the  _ Prometheus  _ was forgotten, and the principles used in the drive’s construction with it.   
  
Of course, there was just one little problem: The  _ Prometheus  _ wasn’t gone, and the drive had worked. If anything, it had worked a little too well. The ship had been slingshotted out of the solar system as though swatted by an angry god. Flung through space, trailing an invisible gravitic wake, the  _ Prometheus  _ blazed far past it’s intended target in an instant. In the time it would take for someone to blink, it had crossed a tenth of the galaxy. By the time that any of the crew had even realized what had happened, it was already in intergalactic space. By the time they sent the shutdown command to the drive, the ship had begun inexorably drifting towards the largest nearby gravity well, the momentum having already begun to bleed out.    
  
The crew felt nothing more than a slight tug at their stomach as the ship lurched back into reality, the twisting bubble of space that had shielded them on their journey peeling back and unveiling their surroundings.    
  
A star, some planets, and an alien sky.    
  
I could give some figures to express how extremely lucky the  _ Prometheus  _ was. Fractions expressed in scientific notation would be without passion or poetry, and anything less would understate it, so rather than that, I’ll simply say that describing it as an act of divine providence is too weak a phrasing.    
  
They had stumbled across not one, not two, but three planets that, after some relatively minor terraforming, would be habitable. Atmospheres with the correct composition, at a reasonable pressure. Temperatures within the realms of human tolerance. Oceans of liquid water, free of any harmful chemicals or alien lifeforms. A veritable Eden.

But a decision needed to be made. Many wished to return home. That had been the original plan, and even though the possibility that they might be stranded or killed had weighed heavy on their minds, they saw no reason that they should stake a claim and settle in for the long haul now. They had a working ship, and a working drive. If recalibrated, they could potentially sail straight back to Earth and report their wild success. Discovering three new habitable planets, a faster than light drive that carried them all the way to another galaxy would land each and every single member of the crew a place in the history books. They’d accomplished more in moments that any other had accomplished throughout their entire lives. They could return and be heroes! 

That was the plan, for a while. The  _ Prometheus  _ hung in orbit around the planet nearest to the star, both as of yet unnamed, for a few days as the engineers checked the drive and the computers, while navigators tried to plot their course and find a way home. With each passing hour, the task seemed more and more impossible. The drive had burnt out from the energy surging through it. Sensitive components were mangled, and could be repaired, but the effect the repairs would have on its operation were unknown. As for their course? It was wildly unpredictable. Using what information they could gather from their journey, they updated their predictions and what they found was disturbing to say the least. The distance they would travel was unpredictable, and the ship was prone to massive, galactic scale drift. Even assuming they could improve the accuracy to the point where they wouldn’t just miss the Milky Way entirely, they were exceedingly unlikely to end up anywhere near Earth, and such an effort could take years.   
  
The crew may have wanted so desperately to return home, but they saw the writing on the wall. It might not have been impossible, but it was a risk they weren’t willing to take. They would make planetfall, keeping the ship in orbit, and begin to colonize the planet that they orbited, as it had the closest conditions to Earth of all the planets available to them.   
  
Thus, a new era of humanity began. The wayward sons of Earth driving their flags into alien dirt, with ploughs and picks soon to follow.    
  
Names came first, though.    
  
Up until this point, the colonists had simply been referring to the planets by their position in the solar system, and their distance from the star, which had been christened “the star” or “that star”. It was dreadfully uninspired, but it worked for the time. If they were to make their homes here, though, “planet 1” wouldn’t cut the mustard. No, they needed names with some provenance.    
  
Some offered the names of other members of the crew, or in arrogance so blinding it almost outshone the star, their own. Those were shot down.    
  
Some considered digging through old star maps and trying to find a name or designation, that there might be some continuity. That was shot down too. 

Finally, they considered going back to what had worked in the past. All the planets of Sol were named after ancient gods, someone had pointed out, as was the ship. It would be a very uncontroversial and safe decision to tread the road of our ancestors and steal their ideas. 

This suggestion was met with apprehension. It was a little uninspired, but they really couldn’t keep calling their new home Planet 1. With no better option, they took up the naming scheme of their ship and opted for Greek myth as the inspiration.    
  
So it was that the star and its planets were given the least inspired names in human history. The star became Helios, and the planets Gaia, Hyperion, and Eos. This somewhat confusing arrangement of names was almost entirely disconnected from any logic, save that people just liked the names. Helios and Gaia were the only ones that bore any real relevance, the star being named for the Greek counterpart to the Roman god Sol, who like his cousin was the god of the sun, and Gaia being named for the goddess of the Earth, the planet named such for its similarities to Earth.    
  
With the first trial overcome, the crew of the ship began to settle their new planet. Gaia would be the core of their new civilization, and they must first tame it. Gaia’s surface was the only one to bear any extraterrestrial life. Limited to just flora, it was remarkably similar to that of Earths, albeit of millions of years before humans walked upright. Convergent evolution at work, it seemed.    
  
The population on the planet grew as the embryos were unfrozen. Outposts grew to cities, and industry blossomed on the planet, providing for and requiring ever more workers. They were stable, the transition from the ship to the planet having been smooth, carried out according to exacting specifications laid out in emergency plans drawn up long before their fateful voyage.    
  
Nothing could ever last, though. As the population reached the millions, the original colonists numbers were dwarfed by those that had been unfrozen, or those that had been born the… natural way. The few that remembered Earth firsthand, and had been chosen in part for their suitability for such a situation were no longer the majority. Discipline had begun to crumble. The loose, informal democracy that the crew of the ship had employed was woefully under equipped for the numbers it now governed. Change came slowly and cautiously at first, as the new government asserted itself and made the necessary changes to ensure that the transition remained smooth.   
  
As the population swelled and the first generation of colonists passed, the fires of revolution would pass over Gaia. Decades had passed, and the cities of the planet had grown into shining metropolises, and the new Gaian Republic was, for the first time, ready to put significant investment into colonization of the other planets. Small outposts had been established, and the beachheads were forged on Hyperion and Eos after the  _ Prometheus  _ had passed by, but Gaia had been the focus of development. But now, they had the means to support new enterprises. 

Political unrest and discontent began to swell among the population. Earth was but a memory now, and the colonists needed a new path to tread. Their survival was all but assured, and any work on returning to Earth was now merely one of many fields of interest, and one that seemed less appealing with each passing year. Questions were asked about how to treat the legacy of Earth. Would they try to emulate the old Earth, with all its flaws and imperfections? Would they leave behind the ties that bound us to that planet, abandon our history to allow us to become something new? Would they remember the lessons learnt, but allow ourselves the freedom to grow and change?   
  
The discussion grew more and more heated, with partisan lines drawn and allegiances declared. It seems petty, looking back, but at the time it seemed so serious. Very “Battle for humanity’s soul!” type stuff. The parties only fractured further as they became more entrenched in their beliefs, and things seemed poised to turn violent. Thankfully, the intent to colonize the other planets stopped things before they got any worse. Officially, the Gaian Republic controlled the whole system, but two whole planets lay beyond their realistic means to govern. They were frontiers, ripe for the taking, and those that favoured the Gaian Republic’s official stance towards Earth, that being to learn from the mistakes, but not to emulate it, were all too happy to tell their political enemies to try their luck elsewhere.   
  
The lines drawn politically soon became very real, as two new governments formed. The Hyperion Directorate, a collection of the small outposts that would later grow into city states, staked their claim on the eponymous planet, declaring their independence from the Gaian Republic almost as soon as they had the means to roughly support themselves. Hyperion was a rugged, wind blasted planet. Cold and bleak, it supported life only tenuously. The Hyperion stance was to surpass and overcome that which had come before. Earth was not to be emulated, or remembered! It was to be left behind with the rest of the galaxy they fled. They had to look to the future, not the past.    
  
The Terran Continuum fled to Eos. The political party of the Republic most commonly blamed for inciting violence of any kind, the Continuum believed themselves to be the successors of Earth’s governments, a claim made somewhat unreasonable by the fact that they had never set foot on Earth, and that none of Earth’s governments knew of the expedition at all. The planet they had landed on was the furthest from Helios, and would be colder than Hyperion were it not for a higher concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It was arboreal. Habitable, like Hyperion, but cold, though the equator provided more Earth like conditions than further up the poles.   
  
For a while, this worked. Gaia stood as first among equals, and the ample elbow room that entire planets afforded them allowed the more extremist elements to avoid any conflict for now.    
  
Things once again returned to stability. The three colonies grew in peace, developing the infrastructure needed to allow for real interplanetary trade. Gaia, with their established population and industry, became the center of trade in the system, with orbital docks and advanced infrastructure needed to launch and recover spacecraft. Technology blossomed, with Hyperion leading the pack as their cavaliere attitude towards safety and their near obsession with progress for progress’ sake inspiring a technological renaissance. Culture bloomed, with each different camp espousing their beliefs through myriad works of art, but among them all the Terrans stood above all others. The nostalgia that pervaded their culture was a hotbed for heartfelt works and fiery rhetoric.    
  
This was a new golden age, and though it would end, it’s remembered today as the height of what we could’ve been, if we had controlled our baser instincts. I’d like to say that I knew who fired the first shot, but I really don’t. No-one does.    
  
The Terrans had fallen to despotism after a famine wracked their planet. The new government promised security, and they had provided it. They halted the famine through careful rationing, but had seized control of most aspects of Terran life in doing so. After the famine, they retained control of the government, though public unrest began to grow. The crisis was over, and they were unhappy that they still maintained the control they had. They needed a new adversary, and so they found two.   
  
Gaia had watched as the Terrans starved. They were the largest producer of food in the system by a wide margin. The two other planets doubtlessly relied on Gaian food shipments to maintain their populations that had swelled to the low billions. For a famine to sweep Eos meant that Gaia had to be complicit. And the Hyperions? They hated the Terrans, clearly, for the two couldn’t be more different. The Hyperions thought of the Terrans as the last bastion of Earth’s memory that they had gone so far to destroy. With the Gaians under their thrall, they intended to destroy the Terrans once and for all.   
  
That was mostly all lies, of course, but it worked. The Terran people, sufficiently cowed, kneeled to their government. If the charade was to be maintained, they needed to act. Hyperion and Gaia were the enemy, and the enemy needed to be destroyed. In secret, the Terrans built a fleet of warships, the first made in the system, and set out to conquer Hyperion and Gaia in the name of Old Earth.   
  
Hyperion was no stranger to war. Though the other nations were coherent, requiring only enough military force to police themselves, the Hyperion government was a fractious federation of different city states, and had fought small skirmishes in the past, only to be brought to heel by the others. The Gaians had long since suspected Hyperion of plotting war, and the escalating arms race between the Hyperion city states and the Terran Continuum was clearly proof of treacherous intent. This led Gaia to begin imposing embargos on Hyperion and Eos that would hopefully curtail the buildup, but it was already too late. The two outer planets had feared Gaia’s economic control, and had sought to render themselves self-sufficient. War seemed inevitable.   
  
As I mentioned, no-one really knew who fired the first shot, because it all kind of happened at once. The Terrans invaded Hyperion, Hyperion launched interplanetary missiles at the Gaians, and a Gaian terrorist group destroyed a Terran naval yard. In short, it was madness. Each faction was at the other’s throats, and it became clear that the fate of the system was at risk. It would only take a slight escalation for one of the planets to be rendered uninhabitable. After all, it was thought that an interplanetary war would be industrially and logistically untenable, and that had already been proven wrong. What was stopping them from dropping asteroids on one another but their rapidly fraying morality?    
  
The war was bloody, and brutal, and I will refrain from further elaboration to spare you the sordid details, but Hyperion stood triumphant. The Terran army was shattered on Hyperion, and the Gaians surrendered when the Fleet Admiral Johan Fuchs threatened to drop nuclear warheads on every city until he received an unconditional surrender. The Terrans were last to surrender, following an extensive bombing campaign that reduced the cities of Eos to rubble.    
  
We’re still dealing with Terran rebels today.    
  
It’s been a hundred years since then. Our calendar no longer syncs up to that of Old Earth. 257 years have passed since we first emerged in the system. I’m not really sure what that is in the old calendar. Roughly the same, I imagine. It took us 257 years to finally make some headway on the drive we recovered from the  _ Prometheus _ . Between war, strife, and the other immediate concerns of colonization, I think that it’s understandable that it hadn’t been our focus, but with the system under the control of Hyperion for a century of peace and stability, we are once again chafing at our bounds.    
  
We have tried investigating other methods of faster than light travel, though none have bore fruit. It was probably a fool’s errand to even try, given that we already had an example of one working drive, but the scientists shied away from further investigation in that field. Calibration of the drive was no easier now than it was back then, even with the leaps and bounds that we’d made in computing. Even the rudimentary AI we’d produced, and their fully sapient descendants struggled to make it work. Tests were difficult to conduct for the same reason the first journey had to be the one that would carry us all here the first time around: The size. The drive demanded immense power, and the means to project a barrier of a certain size. To do so required a ship of a certain size, and that size was large.   
  
Even centuries down the line, it was not something that could be undertaken easily, but with peace upon us, we could focus on our task. It might be risky, but we are no strangers to risk. We, who forged the path to the future would not so easily surrender at the first sign of difficulty. The Directorate was ascendant, in control of Gaia, and what was left of Eos. This was the last frontier. The last of the riddles left to us by Old Earth. Should we overcome it, we would finally prove our superiority.    
  
No expense was spared. The warship constructed to carry the drive was a symbol of our preeminence, and a sign of our growing paranoia. Armed to the teeth with cutting edge technology, the ship glistened in the pale orange light of Helios, it’s armour sparking like lightning. Almost a kilometer long, it was the largest military ship that Hyperion had ever produced, almost as large as the  _ Prometheus _ , and each and every square inch of the ship was dedicated to its task. The ship was informed by what we knew of space warfare from the previous war, and skirmishes with pirates.   
  
Speed was paramount. Being able to avoid shots before they were fired is a valuable asset. As such, capitalizing on the ship's maneuverability by maintaining range was necessary. The weapons that had come to define space warfare were missiles, drones, and the particle lance. Common only to Hyperion prior to the end of the war, the particle lance was a particle weapon that used magnets to accelerate particles to a fraction of the speed of light before sending them cascading into the enemy with unerring accuracy and speed. The holes they left were small, but could easily spear an entire enemy ship from bow to stern. They ranged in size and yield from smaller point defence beams and anti-fighter weapons to brutal spinal mounted cannons that blasted meter wide holes out of anything short of small planetoids. The missiles utilized a variety of payloads, the most dreaded of which was the “Silver Bullet”, a nuclear shaped charge that fired a jet of relativistic tungsten into a foe. Drones were common, operated by AI or remotely from a ship, and were standard on most warships. Able to react faster than any human pilot could physically handle, they were used to deliver heavy ordinance to a target or screen heavier craft from missiles at a range that point defence simply couldn’t.   
  
Battles, therefore, were decided long before enemies entered visual range. Ships sparred, lancing each other from extreme range while desperately trying to jink to throw off enemy targeting. E-Warfare is most commonly focused on this careful game, playing an instrumental role in predicting enemy movements or concealing your own. Quantum entanglement communication was common between ships, with flagships serving as a quantum relay for a fleet, and helped to coordinate action without suffering timelag. In space, every second counted, and they’d be shaved off where possible.    
  
Shielding was not uncommon, but it was niche. Magnetic shielding could be used to deflect energy weapons, like particle lances, though needed to be carefully calibrated to certain wavelengths to avoid overheating when struck. Shielding against kinetic attack was rarer, and varied in function. Most used a second layer of magnetic shielding to contain a thin sheet of plasma which could be used to heat up a projectile to incredible temperatures, vaporizing it and deflecting it. This was power hungry, though, and likewise needed to be carefully calibrated should the ship wish to remain cool.   
  
This new dreadnought had all of these features. A massive spinal mounted particle lance with an alternative neutral particle shield piercing mode, secondary particle batteries that would sweep the heavens of smaller craft and missiles, batteries of VLS tubes that bore thousands of missiles, and launch bays for swarms of drones that would sacrifice themselves to protect the ship. The hull was coated in the shimmering white titanium alloy used to deflect energy weapons, with layers of ceramic and steel beneath to absorb kinetic impacts. The first line of defence, however, was a formidable shielding system, multilayered with redundant generators, all powered by a massive fusion reactor that hummed like the heart of a god. Furthermore, it was equipped with the latest suite of communications, electronic warfare equipment, and AI that rendered it all but immune to hostile intrusion, and allowed it to remain in contact with the Directorate at all times. There was no doubt that this ship was the finest produced by Hyperion engineers. That was before considering the drive. It took up most of the engine deck towards the ship’s stern, and it radiated an ominous aura that the engineers seemed immune to.    
  
It was to be my ship. They chose me as the captain not because I had a sterling record, or because I was exceptionally skilled, or experienced. I’d spent my life hunting pirates, and had only a scant few years of experience doing that. I had yet to be killed, though that was a low bar to jump. No, the reason they chose me was my last name. Fuchs. You may remember earlier that I mentioned a man with the same name, and that was no coincidence. I am of a venerable line of spacefarers, and that, more than anything else, was why I was given command of this vessel. It was pragmatic, really.    
  
The ship was unlikely to face any serious trouble, and should the worst come to pass for a second time, and the experimental drive launched them outside of their means to return, then the ship was provisioned to survive long enough to communicate what had gone wrong to the Directorate and await rescue. The wonders of quantum entanglement made that possible.   
  
In short, my name would read well on the news, and that’s what mattered. My skills were immaterial.    
  
I looked upon the ship from the window of it’s drydock, rugged umbilicals snaking around the craft like chains around a dangerous caged animal. With a chuckle, I realized that was pretty much what it was. A dangerous caged animal.    
  
It had a distinctly predatory look to it. Like a shark, if sharks were a kilometer long and swam through space. The engineers said that it was incapable of making planetfall, though it almost seemed designed for atmosphere. When viewed from above, it had a rough triangular shape that narrowed towards the bow, and from the side it was slim, with jagged, knife like protrusions that jutted out diagonally. A pair swept forwards and narrowed the further forward they went forming a prow, while four sprung from the rear, one for each main engine block. In a plane, they would’ve been control surfaces, but on a spacecraft their purpose was a little more unclear. Only one familiar with spacecraft would be able to tell you that they were concealing radiators, or shielding sensitive components. Atop the ship, behind the telltale protrusions of missile tube hatches, the bridge lay flush against the deck. In combat, the bridge would be evacuated for the CIC, but during normal flight, people liked to be able to see outside.   
  
On the prow, the name of the ship was printed in meter tall lettering:  _ HNC Epimetheus. _


	2. Epimetheus

Drifting silently through the stale air of the observation deck, long coat trailing behind him, he made for the officers lounge on the habitation deck. Extended stays in microgravity was something he was used to, but anyone could tell you that it’s to be avoided where possible. The human body wasn’t meant for it, and while you could become accustomed, space had a way of reminding you that you weren’t welcome.  
  
The closer you got to the habitation ring, the more populous the station got, and before long Fuchs was awkwardly shuffling around enlisted as they tried to salute while also making themselves as flat as they could. The station had a certain utilitarian charm to it that, while certainly efficient, was far from what you might call ergonomic. After passing through what seemed like an inordinate number of airlocks, he was at last rewarded for his efforts with a rotating junction plastered in warnings that there was “Gravity ahead”. Breathing a sigh of relief, Fuchs presses the button beside the airlock, which promptly slides open with a loud hiss and mechanical whine as the pressure equalizes itself.  
  
Looking “down” at the ladder shaft beyond, he swiftly reoriented himself with a grace that comes only from innumerable fumbles, and begins to descend. With each rung passed, the familiar tug of gravity pulled harder and harder at him until his feet finally touched the deck once more. Spin gravity was difficult for a variety of reasons, but one couldn’t help but marvel at the engineering work that must’ve gone into the giant rotating disk atop the drydock. Made to minimize the amount of inbound and outbound traffic, the habitation deck (or ring, or disk, depending on who you asked) was thousands of tons of spinning metal that somehow seamlessly connected to the rest of the station, allowing the crew to live their lives onboard, for a few months at a time.  
  
Still, even here he was noticeably lighter. Hyperion had a surface gravity of about .9G, just a hair under that of Earth, and that was what most people were comfortable with. The station, however, had a “surface” “gravity” of less than .4G. It was enough that it got the job done, but it was an odd experience to say the least. Fuchs was comfortable enough with it, though.  
  
The habitation deck was a kilometer wide disk, larger even than Fuchs’ new flagship, but far less advanced. Weaving through tight, clinically clean corridors artificially lit to _try_ to seem like they were actually lit by sunlight, he had the opportunity to marvel at the tiny apartment buildings set off from the main corridors, and the open spaces used for dining or simple gatherings. On the ground, they’d be woefully quaint at best, but in orbit these facilities were tantamount to luxury. Warships were considered luxurious if they had a single shower onboard. Fuchs imagined that the station must’ve had at least three.  
  
Arriving at the officers lounge, he presses a keycard against the door, which beeps in approval and grants him entry. Leaning in, to take his first step into the room, his progress is halted by the sudden appearance of an obstacle. Stumbling backwards instinctively, his brain begins to catch up, and registers the obstacle as another person. A woman, maybe in her forties, with raven hair tied back in a neat bun. The first signs of her age began to make themselves known, the most immediately obvious being streaks of silver hair wound into the bun. Dressed in the same dark navy and gold uniform as Fuchs, she was clearly an officer of some sort, if her presence in the officer’s lounge hadn’t tipped him off to that fact. Still in possession of her faculties, she stands aside, snapping a smart salute as she gestures for Fuchs to enter.  
  
“Congratulations on your promotion, Commodore.” She flashes a reserved smile as she offers her felicitations. Fuchs’ eyes drift over to her epaulettes, where sure enough, the correct number of golden loops were in place to indicate her rank as a Captain.  
  
“Danke schön, Captain.” He replies automatically, his voice grating uncomfortably in his throat with disuse. Nodding slightly as he enters, he takes a quick glance around the room, scanning for chairs. The lounge was basic by terrestrial standards. Drinks machines, snacks, and a table flanked by a pair of wide leather seats, wide enough to seat a few people each. Stalking over to the coffee machine, he plugs in his demands and the machine gets to work. Looking back over his shoulder, he finds that the Captain still stood there, watching expectantly. Fuchs blinked a few times. She had just been leaving. Was she a fan? No, he didn’t have fans. Waiting to be dismissed? Didn’t look like it. Did he know her? She… did look a little familiar… Sifting through half forgotten memories while peering into the dark fluid like an augur looking for answers in tea leaves.  
  
“Captain Rowley?” He suddenly announced, turning to face the woman with mounting dread. He didn’t exactly _mean_ to unintentionally snub his to-be XO, but the reality was that he’d had to read so many reports that he’d almost gone catatonic. He fought to suppress the growing blush of shame that had begun to tinge his cheeks. “I… wasn’t expecting to find you here.”  
  
Her body relaxes a little, going from rigid to merely formal. “I had been looking over the cargo manifests one last time before we boarded.” She explained, returning to the divot in the chair that Fuchs had only just realized that she had left. “You’ll have to excuse me for being cautious. I have the utmost faith in our engineering teams, but it can’t hurt to be prepared for the worst, sir.”  
  
Captain Rowley should’ve been in charge of the expedition. There was no doubt in his mind of that. Looking back to the coffee, that seemed somewhat less appetizing now than it had before, he gingerly picked it up by the rim and placed it on the counter. He had read her file cover to cover, and had a certain feeling of dread that built with every page. He was certain that they’d chosen him for his name, but Rowley was chosen for her skills. She was one of the most experienced officers in the fleet, not through venerable age but through sheer density. Her career wasn’t as long as some, but it was far more exciting. She’d been fighting pirates and rebels since her enlistment and hadn’t stopped till she was pulled out of combat for this mission.  
  
“No, of course. Can’t hurt to be prepared.” He echoed. She wasn’t an intimidating person, but yet Fuchs still felt an overwhelming pressure that pushed him as far from her as he could be without fleeing the room, so he made himself comfortable leaning against the counter.

She raised an eyebrow, but only momentarily. “So, Commodore, have you taken a look around your new ship yet?”  
  
Fuchs felt a dagger go through his gut. “Not yet. I only arrived on station yesterday. This has all been rather rushed, if I’m to be honest.”  
  
Rowley nods sympathetically. “Yes, it’s all been rather unusual, hasn’t it? I suppose they were so focused on the technical aspects that they forgot that they needed a crew to pilot it.” She replied with a polite chuckle. “I was lucky to have been already on the station at the time, so I’ve had a few days to take a look around and get used to the layout. Say, would you like a tour, sir? Loading should be completed in a few hours, and then we’ll be off, so it’d probably be wise for you to get a last minute inspection.”  
  
Fuchs took one last wistful look at his steaming drink, before signaling his acquiescence.

* * *

Trailing behind Rowley, Fuchs couldn’t help but feel like he was out of place. He missed his little frigate. His name kept him out of most trouble, and there wasn’t too much oversight. He was free to take it as easy as he liked. He knew his crew, some of them in ways that would probably break rules regarding fraternization, and knew his work. It wasn’t glorious, but it had enough excitement amidst the drudgery that it kept him on his toes.  
  
It was nice.  
  
This was a different matter entirely. The best and brightest minds of the time had been assembled to make a ship so cutting edge that it may be about to violate some of the laws of physics as we understood them, staffed by the most elite and experienced crew that the Directorate could pull together, and all of it was under his command. It was wrong. All of this was wrong, he was just lucky enough to have the good fortune to be born with the surname he had.  
  
Despite hoping for someone to wake him up from this nightmare, no such intervention would manifest before they found themselves on the other side of the docking umbilical. Looking back, the ribbed metal skeleton that held the umbilical rigid wavered under the weight of the kevlar sheath shifting due to pressure changes. In his mind, he knew it was very safe, but the sight never failed to send a chill up his spine.  
  
Rowley stood before the airlock. “It seems fitting for you to go first, Commodore.” She said, bringing his attention back to the ship. The flat airlock, separated from the rest of the hull only by a slight grove running around the edges, popped inwards and slid up and out of the way.  
  
“Smart.” He noted as he crossed the threshold, Rowley on his heels.  
  
“The airlock cycles fairly fast. Not like some of the older ships, where it could take upwards of -” The airlock seals behind them, clicking into place. “ - a few minutes. The transitions almost instant when the pressure and composition of the atmosphere matches the ship’s.” The other side of the airlock likewise slides up, allowing passage out of the cramped, industrial room and into the ship proper. The hallway ahead was as narrow as it was on any other spacecraft, and just as harshly lit. Railings on the side helped the pair navigate their way forwards. Warships made no accommodations for gravity, and were instead designed to be easily traversed in microgravity. Big on railings, soft surfaces, and confusing geometry. Not so big on floors. This was something he understood.  
  
“So…” Fuchs drifted forwards into the corridor ahead, looking left and right from the T junction that he had emerged from. Empty. “I take it they didn’t know we’d be coming?”  
  
“The crew are rather busy, sir. Our provisions should already be loaded, but there’s a whole battery of pre-jump checks that need to be done before we can undock. In the meantime, we can take a look through the rest of the ship, meet people as we go?” She offered, gesturing down towards the prow.  
  
Kicking off in the direction indicated, the two sail down the corridor, only occasionally making contact with the railings to stop them from crashing into a wall. Silence, save for the rhythmic mechanical rumblings of the ship’s reactor, took over.  
  
“One hell of a shakedown run.” He muttered, if only to fill the silence. “The last time anyone tried this drive, they ended up in a different galaxy.”  
  
“We don’t have much of a choice in the matter, sir. I’m sure the engineers filled you in on the specifics. It’s all or nothing.”  
  
The briefing he had been given had touched on the subject. The drive was huge, and required a lot of power to run. You could model the principles all you liked, but at the end of the day someone needed to actually give it a go. Sure, they could’ve strapped it to some metal frame and thrown it out into the void, but too many things could’ve gone wrong. They were afraid of ambush, or losing contact with it. Having a warship carry the drive removed a lot of the risks involved.

That didn’t make it any less weird.  
  
“The front of the ship is the most heavily armoured, with overlapping shield generators to provide maximum protection. It also plays host to the e-war center. Normally that’d be near the CIC, but here it’s further forwards, so they’re closer to the forwards facing sensors.” Rowley explained as they reached a bulkhead door. With a thunk, the heavy locks slid out and allowed the door to swing open.  
  
The e-war center was alive with activity. Rows and rows of screens and a large holographic display at the front of the room were tended to by dozens of personnel, most of whom paid the interlopers no mind, too engrossed in whatever work it was that they were doing. The room hummed with the sounds of electronics, and a wall of dry heat hit them as they entered. A short, brown haired man who’d wisely shed his outer layers of clothing oversaw the room, and had tracked the two officers the instant they entered. Floating over, braced himself on a railing with one hand and snapped a salute with the other, which Rowley quickly returned.  
  
“Sir. Ma’am.” He smiled widely, flashing white teeth that offered context for how ruddy his face really was. Dropping his salute and extending his hand to Fuchs, he continued. “I’ve got you at a disadvantage, haven’t I sir? Lieutenant Brooks, comms chief. I’ll be handling e-war and comms, though I figure you already knew that.”  
  
“Pleasure, Brooks.” Fuchs replied, taking his hand and grasping it, which Brooks seemed to take as a challenge, as he retaliated by violently shaking it.  
  
“Pleasure’s all mine. I’ll be up on the bridge later, just need to get everyone organized first. Make sure you don’t set off without me up there, okay? Hell, I’d hate to miss that.”  
  
Fuchs responded with a dry laugh. “I’ll try. Doesn’t seem like we’re ready to cast off just yet, so you should have time.”  
  
“Got it. So, what’s going on, you on tour or something?”  
  
“Something like that, yeah.”  
  
“Well, I gotta say sir, you’ll like what you see. This ship’s a beauty. Real bang up job they did on it. Make sure you get an eyeful before we throw her into hell, won’t you?” He chuckles, and leans back, resting against the wall. “Won’t be the same after we shear it in half.”  
  
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, Lieutenant.” Rowley interjected, a look on her face stern enough to cow even the bravest of men, but Brooks stood strong.  
  
“Yeah, fingers crossed. Never hurts to be prepared though, right?” He laughs again, a loud, booming thing that had more in common with a machine gun burst than actual laughter. Blinking tears out of his eyes, he returns his focus to Fuchs. “Anyway, sir, I’ll let you get back to it. No sense in sticking around with me all day. I’ll see you up on the bridge.”  
  
Fuchs left with the feeling that he’d just been dismissed by an officer three ranks his junior.  
  
“He’s a contemptuous little man, sir, but I was assured he was up to the task.” Rowley launches into her explanation almost as soon as they got out of earshot.

“He seemed fine to me. Little undisciplined, but… I’m sure it’s just nerves.”  
  
Rowley frowned. “I don’t know about that. He’s been like this the past few days. No respect for anyone.” She added, shaking her head. 

“I guess we’ll have to see.” Was all he could conjure as a response. “Where’s next?”  
  
“The armoury. Next to the CIC, with adjoined marine barracks.”  
  
“What’s our complement?”  
  
“For this mission, 2,000.” She stated, suddenly coming to a halt as she grabbed onto the railing beside the door to the armoury, leaving Fuchs to awkwardly trail on a little longer before he could find a railing of his own and drag himself back.  
  
“Did I hear you correctly? 2,000? I thought they misplaced a zero.”  
  
“2,000. They want to make sure that we could repel boarders, or put down a mutiny - not that I think we’d have a mutiny, of course.”  
  
Fuchs shot her a _very_ skeptical look. “We’re not hunting pirates. We’re not going to repel boarders, and if everything goes to plan -”  
  
“Things don’t always go to plan.” Rowley’s tone brokered no argument. “Sir.”  
  
Before they could open the door to the armoury, it opened itself, and a shaved head appeared out of the new portal. “‘Sup? What’re you talking out here for?”  
  
Fuchs leaned in to look through the door. The newcomer was a marine, evidenced by the lack of dress sense or formal demeanor, and a frankly disturbing number of tattoos, easily visible due to the well documented preference all marines have for tank tops. The woman before him looked to be at least as tall as he was (though it was hard to judge, given that she was on her side from his perspective) and probably twice the weight. Even the simple action of bracing herself against the doorway caused her whole frame to ripple, as well defined muscles wound tightly beneath the surface of her skin tensed and relaxed. 

“Colonel.” Rowley greeted the marine with a sigh, and then cast a glance towards Fuchs that could be most accurately interpreted as “ _Get a load of this guy_ ”. 

“Oh, yeah. You’re the new captain, right?” She asked casually, spinning herself around so that she was oriented with the other two.  
  
“Commodore, actually.”

“Well, you’re in charge of the ship, so that makes you the captain, right?” For speaking so casually, her grey eyes felt like they were boring directly into his soul.  
  
“Yeah, but I’ve just been promoted so I feel like lording it over people.” He answered, half truthfully.  
  
This prompted a slight smirk. “Well, I can’t blame you for that. I was insufferable when I got my bars. So, what’re you two doing outside, anyway? You didn’t answer.”  
  
“The Commodo- Captain is touring his ship.” Rowley answers, stumbling over her words momentarily before regaining control of her tongue.  
  
“‘Bout time, too. We’re going to be setting off in an hour or so, right? We just made sure all the weapons are secure, and that the Stormtroopers are happy with their accommodations. Better than they’re used to, I’d bet.”  
  
“Right, the report mentioned that we had Stormtroopers onboard. How many?”  
  
“200.” Rowley answers, quickly.  
  
“Yup. 200 of ‘em. They ain’t talkative, but they kill reaaaal good.” Her eyes glazed over as she remembered some particularly violent incident.

The Stormtroopers had a legendarily brutal reputation from the Terran and Gaian wars. They were wounded and volunteers, taken from the battlefield and sent to undergo significant surgery. They came out the other side faster, stronger, and more durable than they went in. Few people are privy to the specifics, but they have some pretty serious mechanical augmentation going on. The technology was fairly mature at this point, with a few centuries of practice. They were part of everyday life, not just as replacement limbs, but for people who just wanted _better_ parts.  
  
The Stormtroopers were a step above though. They gave people the creeps, and with good reason. Merciless cyborg soldiers were never a particularly enticing subject, and those that had seen them in motion had even more reason to fear them. They had become figures of legend. Some say they can breathe hard vacuum, and that the Directorate makes them out of political enemies, but all we know is that they are very lethal adversaries. 

“So, the armoury.” Fuchs continues, clearing his throat to get the marine’s attention.  
  
“Oh, right, yeah. Well, come on in. Not much to see though. Just a hell of a lot of guns.” The woman waves them in, leading them deeper into the belly of the ship. The armoury of a ship is usually positioned next to the CIC for a few reasons, primarily that were a ship theoretically boarded, the crew could retreat back to the CIC and armoury and not have to spread their forces too thin, and that it would be under the protection of the thickest armour. After all, ammunition cooking off was bad. Worse still on a spaceship.

“That is a lot of guns.” He astutely observed. There was row after row of sealed weapons cabinets, all theoretically fireproof. Marines sailed from cabinet to cabinet, carrying arms of various lengths and caliber, all the while shooting friendly barbs at one another.  
  
“Not much else, Cap. Ain’t a whole lot to see down here.”  
  
“Right.” Nodding, he turns for the door, before he was struck by a sudden realization. Stopping in place, he turns back to the marine. “Wait - I never got your name.”  
  
“Colonel Summer. Though most people call me Kate, Cap.” She gives a quick two finger salute before disappearing off into the bowels of the armoury.  
  
“Alright then.” Fuchs pushes off, heading back into the corridor as he watches Kate vanish. “Rowley, what’s next?”  
  
“Engine deck, then the bridge. By the time we get there, we should be ready to go.”  
  
“Engine deck, right. All the way at the back, right? Damn this ship is big.”  
  
“Biggest yet, sir. We’ll pass the crew quarters on the way, but you’d not be missing much if we skipped them. Just be glad that we get officers’ quarters.”  
  
As Rowley had said, Fuchs was very glad he got his own room. The tiny pods weren’t all that much more than a bed and a footlocker. The ship needed enough for every single crewmember, so any space that could be shaved off without compromising the wellbeing of the crew was. The wetrooms were sufficient, and the mess offered enough space so that you weren’t bumping elbows with the guy next to you. Most of the time, anyway. Food was basic, usually freeze dried stuff that was reheated and thawed. Not exactly high cuisine, but you weren’t liable to starve.  
  
The mechanical heartbeat at the ship’s core got louder and louder as they neared the engine bay, till it wasn’t just something barely audible at the edge of your perception, but had grown to be an absolute nuisance. At least you didn’t have to shout over it, but he could only imagine how annoying it’d get if you had to spend more than a few hours in there at a time.  
  
“So, I should warn you, sir, that our Chief Engineer can come across as somewhat abrasive. No, that’s the wrong word. Protective.” Rowley advised as they reached the bulkhead door leading towards the engine deck.  
  
“How so?”  
  
“It’s no exaggeration to say that he’s put more of himself into this ship than anyone else. He’d been overseeing the construction since the start. Don’t know if your files covered that, but it’s pretty crucial for you to know. He gets somewhat defensive over ‘his’ ship and it’s capabilities. Don’t get me wrong, he’s realistic, just biased.”  
  
Fuchs arched an eyebrow. “If he’s bad enough for you to have to warn me about, then I think it has to be a little more than just bias.”  
  
“You’ll see for yourself soon enough.” Rowley gives the door a hard push, and it swings in with a loud creak.  
  
The other side was the most open room he’d seen in the ship, and one could almost be forgiven for thinking that they were on a planet, were it not for the fact that some of the engineers were hanging upside down or sideways. Engineers and marines were the only crew members that carried magboots as part of their uniform, though engineers seemed far more accustomed to their use. It turns out that having access to both of your hands without having to worry about floating off mid-task was handy.  
  
A large, bearded man suddenly strode up with all the subtlety of a stampeding rhino, and wordlessly grasped Fuchs by the elbow. Somewhat alarmed by these proceedings, he looks over to Rowley, concern plain as day on his face, who rolls her eyes in response. Calming down when he realized that his XO wasn’t reaching for her sidearm, he inspected the man that seemed to be grappling him.  
  
He was tall, but stocky, with reddish brown hair that grew in vast curls from every inch of his head. Hidden beneath waves of hair were two piercingly blue eyes. Entirely too blue. They were glowing. Clearly they were artificial, and probably about twice as good as his own entirely natural eyes. The jumpsuit he wore was stained deep with grease, oil, and metal filings. Oh, as were his hands, which had transferred a good portion of the oil to Fuchs’ pristine long coat. Wonderful.  
  
“Haynes. Adam Haynes. I’m the CE of the _Epimetheus,_ and I take it that you’re the captain.” The engineer growled.  
  
“That’s right.” Haynes held his grip for a while longer, waiting to see if his new captain would pull away first. Fuchs would do no such thing, and held his ground. Maybe it was childish, but eventually the larger men let go with a huff.  
  
“Well, as you can see we’re rather busy here.” He waves behind him, gesturing vaguely towards the arcane machinery that sat between gantries as engineers fawned over it. Pipes snaked to and fro, and in the center a semicircle of computers and screens controlled the whole operation. “All the calculations are done, we should be ready to go on your order, _sir._ ”  
  
“I take it that you’re confident that we should have no trouble?”  
  
“Very.” Seemingly unwilling to elaborate, or give any answer that wasn’t monosyllabic, Fuchs filed Haynes under ‘problematic individuals’.  
  
The two stood in silence for a moment.  
  
“Well, then, if everything is in hand, I’ll be heading to the bridge. Make ready to cast off. Rowley, is everyone aboard?”  
  
“Checks have come in green.” She taps her ear, indicating that she was in contact with the rest of crew, likely with some sort of implant. “We’re just waiting for your word.”  
  
“Order everyone to ready positions. I don’t want anyone cracking their heads open because they weren’t expecting the acceleration. That’d be an embarrassing start.”  
  
The trip to the bridge took a little longer than he’d imagined it would. After giving the order to strap themselves in, the crew had decided to flood the corridors to finish up whatever it was that they were doing before the order was given in time. Fortunately, the crewmen had the good sense to not get in the way of the two officers as they floated through the ship, and so awkward shuffling was kept to a reasonable minimum.  
  
Drifting into the bridge, his XO behind him loudly announced their presence.  
  
“CAPTAIN ON DECK!”  
  
Unable to stand owing to the fact that they were all strapped into their chairs by now, the bridge crew swiveled around to face them, already saluting. A dozen faces looked at him expectantly. “At ease.” He declared, and the crew returned to their tasks.  
  
The bridge itself was of a fairly standard arrangement. The captain’s chair was central, with his XO on one side, and the navigation officer (who was already seated) on the other. Around and below him were the rest of the staff. Officers of various rank and speciality who did work that Fuchs didn’t really understand, but did accept to be important, in their own eldritch ways. From this position, he could not only see down onto the peons toiling below, but out at the blackness of space.  
  
The glimmering skin of the ship stretched out before him, like a mountain against the night. From here, he could see the various clamps holding the ship in place, and the umbilicals connecting the dock to the ship’s airlocks. It really was a caged animal.  
  
Fuchs and Rowley buckled into their seats. Massaging his temples, Fuchs considered what would come next. Undocking would take only a few minutes if what Rowley had said was true, then cruising away from the station would only take a few more at 1g burn. The drive was already primed, capacitors charged. Activating that would only be a matter of giving the order. He consciously slowed his breathing. He was starting to hyperventilate. This was all a little too much, too fast. Couldn’t he have had more time? No. No, it was too late. He was in charge now. This was his show.  
  
After a minute, he found his voice. “Release the clamps. Navigation, give us 100 klicks of breathing room, 1g burn. Sound an acceleration warning.”  
  
A series of ‘aye, sirs’ came out from the crew who he hadn’t realized were watching him almost have a mental breakdown. The bridge returned to the blessed state of not needing his oversight for a few more minutes, which he used to watch the ship slowly ready itself for travel. The clamps burst off, retracted into the dock.  
  
“Captain, the dock authority has authorized our departure and wants to pass on their well wishes.” Brooks, who had gotten to the bridge before them and taken up his workstation, offered.  
  
“Excellent. Then let's be on our way.”  
  
The ship shimmied out of the dock, maneuvering thrusters firing cautiously, so as to avoid any accidental collisions, before the main engines kicked in, pressing Fuchs’ head against the back of his seat. The time seemed to pass quickly, only a few minutes at most, before the nav-officer informed him that they’d made the distance.  
  
He inhaled deeply. “Tell Haynes to ready the drive.”  
  
“Haynes said it’s ready to fire on your orders, sir.” The nav-officer replied. “Coordinates plotted, Haynes said this should drop us right at the edge of the next system over.”  
  
“Then there’s no sense in waiting.” The ship had stopped accelerating, but Fuchs felt like there was some immense weight on him.  
  
“Do you want to say a few words, captain?” Rowley innocently suggested.  
  
Fuchs racked his brain for something. He knew this would probably happen, but he wasn’t the most inspirational speaker. Still, this may end up being a historic moment. Something short, sweet, and to the point should work, right?  
  
“We will succeed where the _Prometheus_ failed. We will return having once and for all mastered this technology, and when we do, will be the harbinger of a new golden age.” He stated, almost unsure.  
  
The crew were mildly impressed. Some even politely clapped.  
  
“Well enough said, I suppose.” She said with a shrug.  
  
“Best I could do, given the circumstances.” He returned a shrug of his own. “Now: Punch it.”


	3. Tuning Fork

It seemed like, for a moment, the universe turned a blind eye to the ship. So repulsed was it by whatever foul blasphemies Hyperion’s engineers leveled against it that it was easier just to allow them to continue than face them head on.    
  
The sky outside the bridge was contorted violently, ripped and stretched around the ship like a blanket. Stars, once small pinpricks of light were drawn across the surface of the pocket as it reaches further, splattering them like raindrops on a pane of glass. The darkness warped and contorted once more, twisting back around and sweeping up all the light it touched, which seemed to curve away behind some unseen screen. The ship screamed in protest, voicing its displeasure at the objective laws of reality being cast aside like a child’s toy through klaxons and warning lights.    
  
The crew were silent as the last light was stolen by the void. For a moment, there was nothing but the deafening bawl of the ship, until an officer wisely silenced it. Space was dead. No stars, no light, no distant planets. Nothing. This wasn’t some colourful spectacle, this was dread made material. And so, with no other option, they waited.    
  
They wouldn’t need to wait for long. A wave of nausea came over the crew as the strands of space coiled around them unraveled. Points of light streamed back in as the stars returned, like their entry played in reverse. A yellow sun burned, and some blue dot twinkled in the distance.    
  
Fuchs let out a long sigh. They weren’t dead. “We’re alive, then.” He muttered thoughtlessly. “I take it that it-” A sudden intrusive thought cut him off as he realized something that the rest of the bridge had doubtless realized before he had.   
  
“We were bound for an M-Class Supergiant.” He intones, his hand unconsciously moving to hold his head steady. The star, nibbling at the edge of the bridge’s windows, was not an M-Class Supergiant. If it were, there would be a reasonably high chance that they would be inside it, which had - amongst other things - given the imposter away.   
  
Rowley, to his shame, was the first to give any orders. “Get us into contact with command. Now, Lieutenant.”   
  
“I’d love to Ma’am, I really would, but the QEC’s non-operative.” Brooks replied with the calm air of a man who wasn’t on an experimental dreadnaught that had found itself in the wrong system.    
  
“It can’t be broken, that’s ridiculous. QECs don’t break.” Fuchs declared, sounding less sure of himself than he had intended. “Have you tried… turning it off and on again?”    
  
“Funnily enough, Sir, that was the first thing I did. I’ve tried rebooting the system three times now, and each time it’s given me a wall of red lights. It’s telling me that the chip isn’t loaded.” Brook’s chair span around, giving Fuchs and Rowley a clear look at his console, for all the good it did them. Neither of them really knew what they were looking at, but it didn’t take an expert to figure out that the number of red lights were a bad sign.   
  
“Maybe the drive knocked it loose. I’ll send a repair team down there, see what’s gone wrong.” An increasingly panicked Fuchs fumbles with one of the control screens for a moment before finding the intercom link to Engineering. The line opened with a click, and was immediately filled with the sounds of sparking electronics and screeching metal.    
  
“Captain, things aren’t looking good down here. As I’m sure you’ve realized, things haven’t gone to plan.” Haynes’ gruff voice cut through the industrial din in the background. “And before you say it, no it wasn’t our fault.”   
  
“I was going to ask you to send a repair party to communications. QECs dead.” Fuchs returned. He’d wager that it’d take a long time for him to get used to their Chief Engineer’s particular style of conversation.   
  
“What? QECs don’t break!” Haynes sputtered, incredulous. “It’ll just be the housing, tell Brooks to reboot the system.”   
  
“I said the same damn thing, but Brooks tried that and it’s still not working.” The bridge crew all turned to look at Fuchs, with the same unsure expressions on their faces. He tried to look away.   
  
“Well, there’s nowt all I can do, we’re all occupied at the minute. You’ll have to wait.”    
  
“What’s going on down there anyway?” As if on cue, a hollow clang runs through the length of the ship, loud enough for him to feel it in his bones. “It’s not by any chance related to the fact that we aren’t where we should be, is it?”   
  
“Not a clue, and anyone who tells you they do know what’s happened is a damn liar. I’ve been working on this drive for nigh on thir-”   
  
“I don’t need your life story, Lieutenant, just your report.” Fuchs snapped, surprising himself. He hadn’t realized just how frustrated he was getting, but given the circumstances he couldn’t be too disappointed.   
  
The response was a grumble that sounded more like a bulldog being drowned in gravel than a noise a human being could make. “If you’re going to be like that, then… The drive has melted.”   
  
Fuchs blinked twice. “Come again?”   
  
“It  _ melted. _ ” He repeated, as though it made any sense. “We were expecting it to heat up, but mid-jump it started going haywire, like it was trying to rip itself out of the housing, then chunks of it just started to slough off.”    
  
Fuchs exchanged glances with the other officers, who seemed similarly lost. Turning back to the console, he ventures: “...Can you fix it?”   
  
“No, I bloody well can’t! What part of the drive having  _ melted  _ is so difficult for you to understand!” A loud clang sounds through the intercom as the Chief Engineer hits the nearest object with his spanner. “We had the supplies to fix it, but not build one from scratch.”   
  
Fuchs’ head sinks into his palms as he massages his temples. “Is the ship capable of moving?” He asks quietly.    
  
“Should be.” Haynes replies suspiciously. “We’ve still got power, and there doesn’t seem to be anything else wrong with the ship other than the drive. And the QEC, apparently.”   
  
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Just… clean up the mess. Salvage what you can. Bridge out.” Fuchs hurriedly thumbs the disconnect button before Haynes could reply. Pulling his head out of his hands, he glances around the bridge. “Damage reports, now. If there’s anything else broken I want to know about it.”   
  
Discipline returned to the bridge crew. They were professionals, yes, but the situation had thrown everyone off kilter. They could hardly be blamed for being confused. Swiftly, reports came in from various different stations, some in the form of verbal acknowledgements, and others in the form of reports forwarded straight to his monitors.   
  
“Most systems are functional.” Rowley surmised, sifting through the reports herself. “We’re combat ready, should the situation call for it.”   
  
“Combat ready?” Fuchs was halfway through scoffing before he stopped himself. He realized that they didn’t actually know where they were, or what had brought them here. Perhaps they were attacked? “Scan the area. I want to know what’s in this system. Flag anything that looks like it might be artificial.”   
  
“Aye, captain.” An officer responded, and a portion of the crew lept into a flurry of action once more. Fingers drummed on keyboards, and soon their scans began to bear fruit. “Tacmap coming up now, sir.” With the officer’s words, a holographic image took up the center of the room. First, it appeared as just specks of blue, little glowing dust motes in the air, unfolding with colour as it expanded. Eventually, it formed a fairly rudimentary map of the system, with certain objects flagged as being suspicious.    
  
“Three objects? 15 klicks?! Focus on the big one, I want a closer look.” He waved in the sensor officer’s general direction. He would really need to get to know these people at some point, but for now he had more important things to deal with. The sensor officer seemed to be good at following orders, at least, as within moments the map zoomed in, circling down to the object. 

It was big. Bigger than any other orbital construct he’d ever seen, and of no architectural style he could place. It’s hull was grey-black, with strange protrusions and divots in the hull, usually lined with white lights that could be some sort of window. It was shaped like some sort of giant tuning fork, with a strange glowing orb in the center that seemed to be contained by arms that lazily rotated around it.    
  
“Is it a weapon?” Rowley was leaning forward, straining against the restraints that kept her in place to get a closer look. “Is it hostile?”   
  
“Can’t say for sure, but it isn’t emitting any heat, or just about anything in the EM spectrum save for light.” The sensor officer explained, shaking his head.    
  
“So what, it’s some sort of statue?” Fuchs had never known anything in space that was worth paying attention to to be cold. Heat was a natural byproduct of any activity. If it was cold, that meant it wasn’t doing anything, or it was getting rid of that heat somehow.    
  
“It’s certainly doing something… Maybe it’s an art exhibit?” Having calmed down, Rowley was now leaning back, scratching her head at the anomaly.    
  
“An art exhibit? A 15 kilometer long art exhibit?” Brooks laughed, shaking his head. “I doubt it. Doesn’t look like any art I’ve ever seen, anyway.”   
  
“It isn’t hostile.” Fuchs concludes, slightly more eager to put things back on track now that Brooks was throwing his hat into the ring. “What about the other contacts?”   
  
Once again, the map changed, cycling over to two seperate contacts, highlighting them both and splitting the hologram in two. One was some boxy thing,only a hundred or so meters long. Different components set into a long central spine, extending out past boxes bolted into the flanks of the ship and narrowing at both ends. A long plume of exhaust trailed behind it as it accelerated towards the tuning fork.    
  
The other object was decidedly more predatory. It looked almost like their own ship, though smaller and bulkier. Four long stalks that swept from a narrow prow extended back behind the ship, each one ending in an engine cluster. The nose of the ship was flat, broad, and likely bore some sort of spinal mounted weapon. Parts of the ship had evidence of ramshackle repair work, with large segments of hull ripped out and replaced with rougher, darker plates. It too was accelerating, but it was on an intercept course. With the first ship.

He didn’t need years of experience with pirates to get a pretty good idea of what was going on here. “It’s a merchant ship, isn’t it?” He pondered aloud, gesturing towards the boxy ship. “And the other’s a pirate ship. Some things never change.”   
  
“More importantly, who the  _ hell _ do they belong to?” Rowley jabbed at the hologram, causing it to wobble back in response. “We’re God knows where, looking at God knows what, and now there are… what, aliens? Terrans?”   
  
“More importantly, do you want us to try hailing them, sir?” Brooks spun around in his chair. “We might be able to ask them where we are.”    
  
“Brooks, that is the worst idea I’ve heard all day.” Rowley spat. “And I’ve heard some bad ideas.”   
  
“I’m with Rowley on this one. That’s stupid. Do the opposite. Comms silence, go dark. We have no read on their capabilities, no idea where we are, and only the vaguest idea of what’s going on. We observe.”    
  
“Sir, with respect if we don’t try to make contact we might escalate the situation. We’re not a quiet ship, and I’ll be damned if they haven’t already seen us. Going dark now won’t hide us unless they’re half blind and half stupid.” Brooks glanced around the deck, looking for support. A few officers cast him sympathetic glances, but they didn’t have the courage to back him openly.   
  
“I appreciate your stance, Brooks, but right now we’re out of our depth.” Fuchs smiled internally. There was some irony about this situation being the most familiar one he’d been faced with all day. “We don’t even know if they speak the same language, or if their comms can even talk to ours. They might communicate through graser bursts for all we know.”   
  
“Our cyberwarfare suite’s already picking up radio signals coming from the ships, sir. We could decode them.” Brooks was adamant. He could understand it, of course. If he’d been told to sit on his hands, his first instinct would be to do something, but he wasn’t about to stumble into a fight they couldn’t win.    
  
“Decode, then. Don’t contact them, just listen. See if you can piece something together. cyberwarfare AI should be able to handle that.” Listening in, he reasoned, wouldn’t expose them to any more danger than they were already in. And anyway, it’s not like they were particularly well hidden. They were far out of visual range, but they still radiated heat like a raging inferno against an ice sheet. A cursory glance would pick them up, and if they did anything to draw attention to themselves, like powering weapons or maneuvering, it wouldn’t even take that. “Give me an ETA as soon as you're able.”    
  
“Aye sir, we’ll start decoding now.” That seemed to placate him, as he turned back to his console and began giving orders to his own set of peons.    
  
In the time it had taken them to finish the argument, the pirate ship had caught up with the freighter. Fuchs knew this wasn’t going to be a fair fight, it never was. Pirates don’t get into fair fights if they can help it. “Make sure you record this. I want all passive sensors pointing at those ships.” The pirate ship was already drawing in close, within a few thousand kilometers. By this point, most would’ve pounced. Either Fuchs was missing something, or these were some awfully disciplined pirates. Despite the freighter’s best attempts at evasive maneuvers, the pirate ship was too close to miss at this sort of range, and it suddenly lanced out, spearing the freighter’s single engine with a slug fired from it’s spinal cannon. Compared to particle cannons, the shell was positively sluggish, but it crossed the distance from to the freighter in a heartbeat, instantly wrecking the engine.    
  
The bridge crew were watching the proceedings with a mixture of curiosity and grim excitement. Fuchs had to admit that there was something awfully interesting about the violence on display, like watching animals hunt on a nature documentary. It reminded him a little of the wolves they had on Hyperion. They didn’t have many animals, but they did have wolves. They’d hunt livestock, and before they went in for the kill, they’d circle their wounded prey, watching the life seep out of them, then feast on the carcass. Very grim indeed.   
  
He couldn’t help but draw the parallel, seeing as how the pirate ship now drew closer, slowly matching speed with the freighter. Why it was running for the tuning fork, he may never know, but it’s fate was sealed now. The pirate ship likely weighed significantly more than the freighter, and if it had any way of connecting to the freighter, it’d have no trouble manhandling it wherever it needed it to go. This was a fairly usual tactic for pirates. Cripple the engine, sidle up to the freighter, and board. It was the only reason ships actually had marines, because you certainly weren’t boarding in a straight up fight.   
  
Just as predicted, the pirate ship swooped in, halting just above the freighter as it began to extend some sort of docking tube towards an airlock. No doubt they’d flood the ship with men just as soon as they got the airlock open. Merchants were armed, sometimes, and being that you could usually funnel pirates into one opening, you could kill a lot of them. Pirates were many things, though, and rarely were they stupid. Once they realized you were putting them into a killbox, they’d figure out where you were hiding and slap a breaching charge onto your hull, blast you out, and let you breathe vacuum.    
  
“What was that, a railgun?” Rowley spoke up, unaffected by the spectacle playing out hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.    
  
“Most likely, Ma’am.” The sensor officer replied. “It was relatively slow, less than .01c.”    
  
For orbital weapons, that wasn’t the fastest. Slugs were designed to go as fast as possible. 3,000km/s was fast, but you could get faster with a smaller slug, and ultimately that was what mattered. You were very rarely within 3,000 kilometers of an enemy ship, and each second you could change heading so dramatically that anyone firing at you would have their aim thrown off, so projectile speed and evasiveness were of the essence. The invisible war fought between prediction AI and randomness generators was a vicious one, and the loser would invariably end up with a big hole in their ship, and the faster the projectile the easier it was to win.

“That’d be why they waited so long to close in. It’s a weapon for precision kills at close range, not dueling.” The gunnery officers all nodded in silent approval of the captain’s verdict. “They probably have longer range weapons for fights at a distance.”   
  
“Missiles, perhaps?” Rowley stroked her chin as she inspected the pirate ship’s hull. “I don’t see many weapons. Some smaller ones. Point defence? Missiles could be hidden inside the hull, though.” She suddenly shakes her head. “We still don’t know what these things are, though. This could be a first contact situation.”   
  
“It’s equally, if not more likely, that they’re humans. I mean, you look at those ships and you tell me you couldn’t see a human putting those together.” Fuchs argued. It was true, they certainly didn’t seem overly alien.   
  
“Convergent designs. Plus, we don’t know where we are. There’s no reason there would be humans here.” She takes a second to think. “And Brooks is having to decode their transmissions. If they were human, wouldn’t they use something similar to us?”   
  
“Not necessarily. Almost three hundred years of tech-drift could account for some pretty significant differences in comms protocols. Our computers are sifting through it fast enough, anyway. We’re not sure if they’re actively encrypting it, or if this is just how they deal with whatever sort of transmissions they are.” Barely even turning around from his console, Brooks offers his opinion. “I’m not about to say that they’re for sure human, though. We really  _ don’t  _ know where we are. Under the circumstances, it almost feels arrogant to assume that they’re human.”   
  
“We can pontificate on this all day long, but it’s not going to get us anywhere. Brooks, you were chomping at the bit to do something, so  _ do something. _ ” Fuchs had caught some of the comms officer’s impatience. He was still conflicted, though. On one hand, intervention could invite wrack and ruin down upon them, but on the other, doing nothing was frustrating to the point of insanity. 

“We’re almost there, sir. We’re just about to crack some of the basics, the rest should follow soon enough, once we have something to work with…” As he spoke, the tacmap was pushed to one side, replaced by static. “There!… oh.” He turned to see the static, and immediately deflated. “Just a little adjustment, and…” Reaching around, he fiddled with some control, and the static faded away, replaced by what was unmistakably an alien. “Oh.”   
  
“Damn, he’s ugly.” Fuchs exclaimed, almost automatically. The alien’s visage was, without a shadow of a doubt, ugly. Four dark soulless eyes, a muddy yellow complexion, a nose that looked like someone had stabbed him repeatedly in the face, and a row of needle sharp teeth, like some sort of deep ocean horror. The thing ranted at the screen in a guttural, choking language. Those assembled could only assume that it was angry, but it was a fairly safe assumption. Some things had to be universal. Shouting loud enough that flecks of saliva (or saliva equivalent) splattered the camera meaning anger had to be one of them. 

“I stand corrected, then.” Fuchs said with a sigh. “I never put any money on it, though. Anyway, do we have any clue what it’s saying, or who it’s talking to?”   
  
“No clue. We’ve got no context to translate, so we’d need something more substantial for that. As for who he’s talking to? Probably boarding teams. He doesn’t look happy though, so things probably aren’t going too well.” Brooks squints at his screen. “We’re running through their systems now. It’s got more vulnerabilities than anything I’ve ever seen… Pirates…” He shook his head.   
  
“Running through their systems? I told you to observe.” Fuchs put on his best angry glare, but Brooks seemed unimpressed. “We’ll deal with that later. For now, do you know if they’ve detected the intrusion?”   
  
“No response so far. Shit.” He sucks air through his teeth. “Half their systems are linked in to the comms. They don’t seem to have any EWar AI, so we have the upper hand in that regard… I could probably blind them, if you wanted.”   
  
“Why would I want you to do that?” Fuchs leaned back. He already knew the answer, of course.   
  
“Well, you were afraid of them calling for help, right? I could have them deaf and mute within minutes, and we could sidle up, careful as you like, maybe deploy some borders of our own.” Brooks shrugged.   
  
“And why would we do that?”    
  
“Grateful locals might be disposed to lend us a hand. Alien or no, they’ve got to appreciate that.”    
  
“At least you’re not proposing we do it out of the goodness of our hearts.” Fuchs remarks dryly, prompting a subdued chuckle from some of the crew, and slight disgust from the others.    
  
“You can’t really be considering this, captain?” Rowley asks. “Deploying boarders, on the hope that their cybersecurity is as bad as it looks at a quick glance? This could be a trap!”   
  
“I agree, it’s very risky, but if Brooks is right about one thing, it’s that this could save us an awful lot of time. Before, the situation was different. Hailing them would’ve given them ample opportunity to call for help, or get the first shot in, but this is different. We’ve got some idea of their capabilities, and we can be fairly sure they won’t be calling for help.”   
  
“We don’t know that that was the extent of their capabilities, sir. It’s perfectly possible, even likely, that they were pulling their punches.”    
  
“As it stands, Rowley, we’re low on options. I’m not willing to write one off just because it’s risky. We’re stuck in this system until we can repair the drive - rather  _ if  _ we can repair the drive. We have a better idea of the risks involved, and there are still unknowns here, but they’re ones I’m willing to deal with.” He chuckles. “And anyway, Brooks forced my hand. Pirates though they may be, they’ll notice our intrusion eventually, and they’ll start looking for what’s doing it. We’re barely even hiding. Frankly I’m surprised they haven’t seen us already.” Fuchs shakes his head and sighs. “Do it, Brooks. I want them dead in the water. Everything but life support. You sure you can get the right systems?”   
  
“Fairly sure, sir. We’ve managed to get a confirmed ID on most of the systems. We’ve spoofed the right credentials, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to lock them out. Nothing short of manually overriding it should work then.”   
  
“You’ve managed to do all that without even learning their language?”   
  
Brooks scoffs. “Spoken language and computer-speak are two different things.”    
  
“Whatever you say, Brooks. Just do it.”    
  
“Aye, sir.” A moment passes, and the alien’s face (which had been silently ranting at the bridge ever since someone muted it) disappears. “Done. They’re dead in the water, as requested.”   
  
“Alright. Helmsman, bring us in. Gunnery, I want weapons hot and trained on anything that looks like a power source. If they so much as twitch I want them dead.” A wave of ‘Aye sirs’ wash over him. Fuchs could breathe a little easier, now. He might be far, far from home, risking his life and the lives of his men fighting aliens for no good reason, but they were piratical aliens, damnit. Something about that comforted him. He knew that. He knew  _ this.  _ This wasn’t jump drives that violate the laws of physics in a way that should be criminal, or leading a one of a kind expedition with the fate of mankind in his hands. Well, maybe it was, but one problem at a time.   
  
“Oh, and someone tell Colonel Summer to get the stormtroopers ready.”   



End file.
